Years past, I was reasonable up on all the various components that went into a desk top type computer. I built quite a few, and the last one, still whirring along but not as fast as some of the newer software needs, is between 7 and 8 years ago.
I know what I want for memory speed and type (DDR4, 3600), and probably will go with the flat board PCI type hard drive for the primary drive to hold Win10 and all it's needs.
I've used ASUS motherboards in the past, but now see that there aren't just a few to choose from, but many. I'm not adverse to Gigabyte, both who seem to have been in business for awhile. I don't need to overclock much or at all. A modular power supply would be nice, but I don't need fans that change color like a cuttlefish at the slightest provocation on either the power supply or chip cooling device.
Some advertise themselves as 'gaming' boards, and I see that usually means a wifi antenna port rather than an RJ-45 to hard wire to the router, and no or little on-board graphics, I assume any gamer worth his or her salt would chose and see if they can even buy a high end graphics board to allow them all that comes with it.
I really can go with ASUS or Gigabyte for motherboards, and would like to have at least one RJ-45 ethernet on board and optimized for that, and the ability to use an I-7 or -9 chip. I see that a 490 or 590 seems to designate the chipset with all the wonders in support that they do, with some even saying that they'll support the latest CPUs from Intel (which makes me wonder if once that is established as the norm, the lower level cpus won't be able to be found any more if one goes kerplunk.
So, if those who are gurus and have studied this recently, can you give me any hints about what to look for, or avoid like the plague, in the quest to get a pretty good motherboard, which can make use of the Intel chip on-board graphics for now, two monitors if I can? This would allow me to focus on a few boards rather than try to digest the whole gamut. I see both NewEgg and Amazon seem to be about the same for offerings.
And of course any thoughts on memory brand, board type main SSD drive types, and power supplies and CPU coolers would be appreciated, if you have an opinion.
And do I need to throw in a DVD/BluRay reader/writer as was pretty much standard on my last builds?
Thanks. Dale